Kris Kristofferson covers Vols I & II | ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST

Now these are nice and after his untimely death at only 88 we need to examine Kris’ place in the pantheon of Highwaymen wayward singer troubadours and actors too! 

Well done Paul over at ATSE

Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 1: 1968-1973

Paul says : In the past couple of weeks (as I write this in October 2024), I've started fixing some cover photos that had some issues with the recently released Krea AI program. Probably the covers that needed the most work were the ones for my "Covered" series, albums that highlight the best songwriters in popular music, especially those who didn't have lots of success with their own versions. I hadn't posted any Covered albums in a long time, but I actually have over a dozen different songwriters (or songwriting teams) ready to go. One thing that held me back though was the cover art, since some of these songwriters have barely been photographed at all. But now that I'm using the Krea AI program, I'm excited to see if good cover art can be made. So I'm going to make an effort to get a whole bunch of these Covered albums posted in the near future.

The logical place to start with this new effort is Kris Kristofferson. That's because he died about two weeks ago (September 28, 2024, specifically) as I write this, so this could make a good way to remember his musical legacy. He was 88 years old when he passed.

Kristofferson was one of the great songwriters for country music, but he wasn't blessed with a great voice. Thus, he was frequently covered by other musical acts, and he had only a few hits of his own. That works well for my Covered series. I only have a few of his albums in my music collection, mostly his most critically praised ones from the early 1970s. But in the wake of his death, there were a bunch of newspaper articles listing what people thought were his best songs (usually top ten lists). So I went through those, and made sure all of his most praised songs were included. 

I found enough material for two solid albums. This is the first one. As I usually try to do with this series, I emphasized cover versions. Only one song (on the second volume) features Kristofferson singing one of his own songs (though there's also a song performed by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup he was a part of).

In the past with these Covered albums, I've written a lot about the artists and the songs. From now on, I'm going to cut that short, so I'll find it easier to post a lot more of these albums. If you want to know a lot more, I suggest reading this Wikipedia page about him:

Kris Kristofferson - Wikipedia

But here's my short version of his career is like this. Kristofferson burst onto the country music scene around the year 1970, when loads of country music stars started covering his songs. Probably the best known cover was "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, which hit Number One on the U.S. single chart in 1971. But there were others. For instance, in 1970, "For the Good Times" was a Number One country single for Ray Price, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was Number One country single for Johnny Cash, and "Help Me Make It through the Night" was the same for Sammi Smith. At the time, country music was pretty formulaic, with relatively simple melodies and lyrics. Kristofferson wasn't a big groundbreaker for melodies, but his lyrics really shook up country music with their eloquence and emotional intelligence. One might say he brought a Bob Dylan level of songwriting to country music.

Kristofferson kept his own music career going, while still having his songs frequently covered by others. However, he only had one big hit on his own, "Why Me (Lord)," which reached Number One on the country singles chart in 1974. At the same time he kept a music career going, he also was very successful in the movies, starring in dozens of films, many of them with a country theme.

As usual with this Covered series, I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of only including one version of any given song. So, for instance, I was torn between the Ray Price and Al Green versions of "For the Good Times." The Price version was a massive hit in 1970, but I liked the Green version better. I had to make many other decisions like that. For instance, dozens of famous musical acts have covered "Help Me Make It through the Night." I also tried not to have more than one song per performer. But I decided to only make that a loose rule. Note for instance two songs done by Johnny Cash here. All the songs are in order of the year these versions came out. Consult the mp3 tags for details on that.

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Jody and the Kid (Roy Drusky)
02 From the Bottle to the Bottom (Billy Walker)
03 Sugarman (Sam Baker)
04 Darby's Castle (Roger Miller)
05 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
06 Help Me Make It through the Night (Sammi Smith)
07 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
08 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
09 Me and Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)
10 I've Got to Have You (Carly Simon)
11 The Taker (Waylon Jennings)
12 Casey's Last Ride (John Denver)
13 For the Good Times (Al Green)
14 Nobody Wins (Lynn Anderson)

Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 2: 1974-2009

Paul continues : I just posted Volume One for the "Covered" series selections for country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Here's Volume Two already. 

As I mentioned with Volume One, Kristofferson died two weeks ago as I write this in October 2024. He was 88 years old. 

He had a long and successful music career. He didn't have big commercial success - only two of his 18 studio albums even reached Gold sales (meaning 500,000 copies sold), and he never sold at the Platinum level (meaning a million). But he had a lot of critical acclaim, and he'll probably be best known for the thousands of cover versions of his songs.

His biggest impact undoubtedly was in the early 1970s, which was dealt with on Volume One. A few of the songs here also were first released in the early 1970s, but I preferred versions that came out later. But he continued to write and record quality songs until nearly the end of his life. (His last album of new material came out in 2016). For instance, Johnny Cash said "Here Comes That Rainbow Again" was his favorite song of all time. (The version of that song included here is by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup consisting of Kristofferson, Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.)

Since I'm not deeply familiar with Kristofferson's entire musical output, if there are any covers of great songs that I missed, please let me know and I'll consider including them.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Why Me, Lord (George Jones)
02 The Junkie and the Juicehead [Minus Me] (Johnny Cash)
03 Prone to Lean (Donnie Fritts)
04 Stranger (Billy Swan)
05 Rock and Roll Time (Roger McGuinn)
06 Something They Can't Take Away from Me (Roy Orbison)
07 You Show Me Yours [And I'll Show You Mine] (Willie Nelson with Amy Irvine)
08 One Day at a Time (Christy Lane)
09 If You Don't Like Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.)
10 They Killed Him (Johnny Cash)
11 Lovin' Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Tompall & the Glaser Brothers)
12 Here Comes That Rainbow Again (Highwaymen)
13 Jesus Was a Capricorn (Diana Darby)
14 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Emmylou Harris)
15 Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends (Joan Osborne)
16 The Silver Tongued Devil and I (Dick Van Altena)
17 Closer to the Bone (Kris Kristofferson)